RE: The most horrifying journey, this is what doubting 'everything' does.
April 1, 2018 at 7:10 pm
Mystic, have you ever read Plato's Euthyphro?
In it the argument is made that (even if gods exist) values don't come from them. It's a solid argument. I am convinced by it anyway, and I've given it a great deal of consideration.
The arguments for moral skepticism are tough to overcome, but is has been done without appeal to religious notions.
Religious people like to tout themselves as people with true and certain values. But you know what I've found? When you really press them on it, and work past the surface of the issues, you often find a moral nihilist beneath the armor. Everything boils down to a blood ritual that forgave sin or obeying laws that were etched onto stone tablets. Nothing about intrinsic human value. Nothing about treating others with care and dignity because they deserve it. It's all done out of obedience... or for a reward... or to escape a punishment. Where are the values in all that?
To think about and reason out why something is right or why something is wrong and to live according to those principles demonstrates a greater ethical character than obeying a superior cosmic force out of fear.
In it the argument is made that (even if gods exist) values don't come from them. It's a solid argument. I am convinced by it anyway, and I've given it a great deal of consideration.
The arguments for moral skepticism are tough to overcome, but is has been done without appeal to religious notions.
Religious people like to tout themselves as people with true and certain values. But you know what I've found? When you really press them on it, and work past the surface of the issues, you often find a moral nihilist beneath the armor. Everything boils down to a blood ritual that forgave sin or obeying laws that were etched onto stone tablets. Nothing about intrinsic human value. Nothing about treating others with care and dignity because they deserve it. It's all done out of obedience... or for a reward... or to escape a punishment. Where are the values in all that?
To think about and reason out why something is right or why something is wrong and to live according to those principles demonstrates a greater ethical character than obeying a superior cosmic force out of fear.
